Human beings and human govenments have a tendency to abuse their power. Frightened and angry human beings have a tendency to act crazy. But, in any nation where abuses occur, there will always be those who speak out against the darkness. The nation of Israel is no exception to this rule.

Murdered Israeli teens Gil-Ad Shaer, Eyal Yifrah and Naftali Fraenkel were buried on July 1 in a nationally televised funeral. As reported by Patrick Martin of the World Socialist Website:

Within hours of the funeral, a mob of several hundred Israeli Jews stormed through parts of Jerusalem, attacking any Palestinian they encountered … A Facebook page calling for violent retribution against any and all Palestinian Arabs has acquired 35,000 members, including so many soldiers that the Israel Defense Forces had to issue a statement that such involvement was prohibited.

But Barry Grey of Global Research reported:

The attempt of Netanyahu to use the deaths of the Israeli teens as the pretext for stepped up aggression against the Palestinians, and the racist agitation of pro-settler elements, prompted some 3,000 mostly young Israelis to stage a rally for peace and tolerance on [July 2]. The rally was organized by Tag Meir, a pro-peace coalition of 43 organizations. USA Today quoted one of the participants, Jonah Clarfield, 25, as saying, ‘This is a response to the racist march that took place last night.’ Marchers held hand-made posters reading, ‘We Are All Human Beings’ and ‘Light, Not Terror.’

In addition, Jerusalem city council member and peace activist Meir Margalit spoke out strongly against the actions of Netanyahu and the Israeli right wing.

This chain of events began April 23, when Fatah and Hamas announced the formation of a unity Palestinian government. The agreement was contingent on Hamas renouncing its program of violence against civilians. The Hamas leadership thus had no motivation to authorize the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers six weeks later.

However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed to “know” that Hamas was behind the kidnapping, and in retribution (even before the bodies of the teens were found), he unleashed a rampage through the West Bank which resulted in hundreds of arrests and at least six Palestinian deaths. These actions raised the hackles of many observers and even led some to speculate about the possibility of an Israeli ”false flag.”

But, according to Martin: “American media reports, citing Israeli security officials, concede that the killings were carried out by former supporters of Hamas who broke with the organization over its turn away from terrorist attacks on individuals.” This seems plausible to me (more so than an Israeli false flag). Still, Netanyahu chose to punish those who he knows were not guilty, so IMO, the event still has an unpleasant “false flag odor” to it.

On July 2, Netanyahu received a stunning dose of Instant Karma, when 16-year-old Palestinian Muhammad Hussein abu Khudair was kidnapped and murdered, most likely by extreme right-wing Israelis. This murder was not authorized by the Israeli government or the IDF (just as the murders of Shaer, Yifrah and Fraenkel were not authorized by Hamas).

The event made almost unprecedented headlines internationally. For many Americans, it may have been their first real exposure to the Palestinian side of the story.

Ironically, after the murder of Khudair, the Israeli government called for “restraint” and claimed to be uncertain about who perpetrated the killing (in stark contrast to their “absolute certainty” about who killed the three Israeli teens). In fact, they may be trying to sell it as a “Palestinian false flag.”

I confess I am troubled by the spectacle of grandchildren of Holocaust survivors virtually screaming for genocide against Arabs. What fools these mortals be!

On the other hand (and there is always an other hand), here is another excerpt from the Martin article:

The uncle of Naftali Fraenkel, speaking for the family of the Israeli teenager, condemned the murder of Muhammad Khudair. ‘If indeed an Arab youth has been murdered for nationalistic motive, this is a horrifying, shocking act,’ he said. ‘There is no difference in blood. Murder is murder, whatever one’s nationality or age.’

And human nature, with both its good and bad qualities, also transcends nationality.

Thanks lauraw for this article and for bringing some balance to these issues. I find the quote from the uncle of Naftali Fraenkel particularly meaningful. The cycle of “violence begets violence” continues despite the protests of good people on both sides of the dispute. How sad this is.

Thank you for this diary! And thank you, wigwam @ 2, for a link to a diary which I wondered how I could have missed it here — until I realized that it was on DKos.

My main comment is that supporting a binational, one-state solution is something that I’ve been doing as a diaspora Jew for 40 years and a bit more, and I’m puzzled by anyone, at least on an ethical level, would regard peace through inclusion and ethnic diversity as a “last resort” after ethnic cleansing and massive marginalization of the Palestinian Arab people have failed.

“Two states for two peoples,” given the history of Palestine from 1882 to the present, is on par with “Two drinking fountains for two peoples.” As we mark the 50th anniversity of Freedom Summer in Mississippi, this is a time to reflect on peace through integration in Palestine/Israel also.

What I should add to my comment @4 is that many Israeli Jews leaning in a progressive direction have been oriented to a sense of history which can be difficult to reconsider. The idea is that the 1967 war was the downfall of a better Israel, with “the occupation” threatening the founding democratic values.

And at a certain intellectual and emotional level, as some of us know who have grown up in at least relatively privileged positions (e.g. “The police are our friends”), it can be very hard to take a radically different perspective.

So I wouldn’t want in any way to minimize the importance of an Israeli Jew reaching this kind of conclusion in favor of a binational solution. It’s precisely what must happen, millions of times, for peace with justice to come to the region.

Also, it’s only fair to add that there were large numbers of Israeli Jews who took to the streets to protest such outrages as the destruction of Iqrit and Kafr Birim in the early 1950′s — just as they did a generation later in 1982 in response to the massacres of Palestinian refugees at Sabra and Shatilla in Lebanon. Perhaps the dilemma of a widespread Israeli Jewish “consensus” is analogous to that of the two-party system in the U.S.A.

Your questions are so helpful in seeking out a road to peace, and I’ll try to keep my response reasonably concise, focusing on some main points of an often quite complex history.

Binationalism is actually one of the classic approaches to the Palestine Question. The basic idea that developed in the 1920′s and 1930′s was that the new immigrant Jews, as well as the indigenous Palestinian Arabs (including Muslims, Christians, and Jews also), would create an inclusive democracy based on equal citizenship and recognizing the national rights of both peoples.

This was, in those decades, an especially common position among Jews such as the Rabbi Judah L. Magnes (founder of Hebrew University), Albert Einstein, and the philosopher Martin Buber (who later was coopted by the political brand of Zionism which became the basis for Israeli policy).

Some Palestinian Arabs also supported binationalism. In 1942, there was actually an understanding reached among some of the leaders on both sides that “Palestine shall be a binational state.”

Tragically, it was also a dangerous position to take. At least one Palestinian Arab binationalist was assassinated (presumably by other Arabs), as the Rabbi Magnes might well have been also (likely by Zionist Jews, maybe some of the same people who assassinated Count Folke Bernadotte, the United Nations Mediator, in 1948).

Curiously, as the Israeli Jewish historian Ilan Pappe observed in a talk at Berkeley in 2003, the United Nations resolution (General Assembly Resolution 181) in 1947 included some aspects of binationalism in its framework for a “Jewish state.”

It provided that this state, while it would be open to immigration of Holocaust survivors from Europe, would have equal citizenship rights for Palestinian Arab residents — over 40% of the population at that time in the territory specified for the “Jewish state.”

It also provided that the Jewish state must adopt a constitution prohibiting discrimination “by race, religion, or sex.” And Palestinian Arab property rights were to be guaranteed.

These are precisely the guarantees that were violated during and after the 1947-1949 war, in what is the continuing tragedy of al-Nakba or the Palestinian Catastrophe.

Recent supporters of binationalism had included the late Palestinian-American Professor Edward Said; the Israeli Jewish writer Meron Benveniste; and Professor As’ad Ghanem, a Palestinian citizen of Israel.

Exactly how binationalism in Israel/Palestine would look is an open question. The Swiss system of cantons is one ideal, with Canada and Belgium as other possible precedents; and the federalism of the USA yet another model that could play a role.

On the 1967 war: this was a preemptive (or possibly preventive) war started by Israel, that grew out of regional tensions. But it provided an opportunity for Israel to do what some had predicted: take over all of Palestine (including the West Bank and Gaza) as defined in the old 1922 League of Nations mandate.

This is not to say that Israel alone was at fault: Palestinian Arabs acknowledged that the rhetoric of some Palestinian leaders about deporting any Jews who might survive an impending war contributed to global perceptions that Israeli Jews were actually in danger of being “driven into the sea.” That’s another story, but in fact it was Palestinian Arabs who again became refugees in large numbers during and after the 1967 war.

Also, you may be recalling the 1973 war (sometimes known as the “Yom Kippur war”) where some of the Arab states launched the war, in contrast to 1967 where it was Israel.

My apologies for the length of these “basic answers,” which I hope may invite further discussion.

I should make it clear that the Rabbi Magnes was not actually assassinated, but was often accompanied in the years leading up to the 1948 war by bodyguards to prevent this; and that plus some good luck saved his life. The assassination of the Rabbi Jacob Israel de Haan, not a binationalist but like the Rabbi Magnes a supporter of Palestinian rights, on June 30, 1924 by the Zionist paramilitary Haganah, shows the danger.

Regarding a one-state solution, you may be interested in reading One Country or the more recent book referenced by Gersho, The Battle for Justice in Palestine by Ali Abuminah for a discussion of a single state solution. He participated in a Book Salon at FDL recently.

Regarding a one-state solution, you may be interested in reading One Country or the more recent book referenced by Gershon, The Battle for Justice in Palestine by Ali Abuminah for a discussion of a single state solution. He participated in a Book Salon at FDL recently.

Welcome to FDL

Sign in with Facebook or Google+

OR use your MyFDL username

Toolbox

MyFDL is Firedoglake's community site. Anyone can participate by commenting on posts or joining groups to find other people in your area. Content posted to MyFDL is the opinion of the author alone, and should not be attributed to Firedoglake.